Comment from: Ninjacrat posted at April 1, 2006 8:08 AM

Having devoiced the post...

Henrietta's out of her tree.
The damn comic's been lampooning all aspects of 'fanboy culture' for approximately as long as it's _had_ a plot; it'd take a pretty bloody-minded reading to see it as anything else.

Comment from: badmoon posted at April 1, 2006 8:56 AM

Posting that link should be a damn warcrime, dreamshade. The speed in which it sears itself into memory is frightening. One glorious day, I'll revenge myself upon you :D

Comment from: Nate posted at April 1, 2006 9:09 AM

I think the record's been roundly beaten, even if you didn't have someone pulled over when you were doing it.

Comment from: Sili posted at April 1, 2006 9:33 AM

And here I thought that [REDACTED] [PANDA] couldn't be beat. Sadly, I find myself disagreeing with Henrietta. Mainly because I'm offended by her condescending tone and high-faluting New-England accent.

Sicerely,
[EEEEEEEEK]

Comment from: TheNintenGenius posted at April 1, 2006 9:35 AM

Playing off Axonite's comments, we should totally have a Neighborhood of Make Believe comics blog. Or at the very least I want to see Lady Elaine's take on this for some reason.

By the way, I wasn't kidding about my earlier comment, this really is the greatest post in the history of everything.

Either the Websnark duo (personally, I think Weds has more to do with this than Eric, but I've been wrong before) doesn't remember their Internet history, or they know all too well and are waiting to see who reacts like this.

But to put it simply, Henrietta Pussycat is one of the virtual Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Any chance she had at virtual innocence is long since gone. She has become Death, destroyer of worlds.

I mean, there are a few rules you have to live by. Don't tug on Superman's cape. Don't spit into the wind. Don't pull the mask off the Lone Ranger. And you don't tempt the Meow, at least not before a UseNet veteran.

Comment from: thomas posted at April 1, 2006 12:51 PM

I've just created a Typekey account specifically to post this comment: respect for the critical dialogue this site had has been irrevocably lost. You just crossed the line from 'discourse' to 'haha interweb LOL'. Cat posts = weaksauce.

Comment from: Vanderath posted at April 1, 2006 1:27 PM

You've not truly read websnark unless you've read it in the original meow.

Nor should you live the Meow down. In some of my less-proud moments, I've tangled with agents of the Meow - shortly after the fall of the HFW, which at the time was their major distraction. Yeah, on the flip side, I have friends who once Meowed, but still, the Meow is probably the greatest symbol in my mind of the Eternal September.

And anyhow, the alt.* hierarchy is necessary because it's unnecessary. As much as it was prone to abuse, as the Meow proved handily, it was also a safety valve. Of course, I'm "immortalized" in it. So I can never speak of it impassively.

Sigh... I just have to keep repeating to myself, the Meow is no more... the Meow is no more...

Comment from: John posted at April 1, 2006 3:51 PM

Wait. Was Wednesday really chased by a knife-wielding admirer at one point?

On the other hand, if Eric wrote this... was Eric really chased by a knife-wielding admirer at one point?

I think Fred is trying to play both sides here (and it may catch him up yet). On the one hand, he does recognize the unhealthy, obsessive side of fandom. It's a dangerous force. On the other, he seems to want to confront us with the real humanity of the individuals who make up these fan communities. So while we have Largo defending Erika from fan hordes on the one hand, we have Piro embodying the fan persona on the other.

Though Piro is about to come face-to-face with his own fandom writ large. Could be a moment of truth for him.

Comment from: Arujei posted at April 1, 2006 5:02 PM

Uhhh, what the hell?

I'm sure there should be some kind of post here, but I can't read it through the flood of annoying meows. Anybody want to translate the gist of it for me and those of us too lazy to take out the meows?

Comment from: Zaq posted at April 1, 2006 5:04 PM

It's like reverse Smurfism.

And it's even better if you read it out loud. Go on. Try it. Just make sure your roomate/co-workers/etc. are out fo the room first.

Comment from: thok posted at April 1, 2006 5:15 PM

This is kinda the flip side of what Eric wrote at Websnark's one-year mark, about the cool kids suddenly thinking you're the cool kid. Unfortunately the wanna-be cool kids start thinking it too, and that can get any and all degrees of unpleasant. I've been there - not on the scale Eric and Wednesday know, of course - and it's only made the worse for me because I know I'm on the other side of it all too often. I worked the green room at the Chicago Worldcon in 1982. Jim Henson was one of the guests. He never showed up in the green room though, and I've always said that that was for the best because I know I would've gushed horribly. My stepdaughter met him though - she was a year and a half old at the time - and that, I suppose, is more important. But did you know Douglas Adams was about six and a half feet tall?

Comment from: Robert Hutchinson posted at April 1, 2006 5:32 PM

Taking meow the meows is not meow meow, as they meow important meow in each meow. Meow rhythm must meow preserved.

I read Megatokyo for sentimental reasons - it was the receipt of the paperback Chapter 0 for Father's Day that introduced me to the webcomics world and led to the creation of my conventional (as opposed to fanfiction) webcomic - but I did prefer its earlier, funny strips.

Comment from: Ninjacrat posted at April 2, 2006 11:45 AM

People have to specify they're 'not ashamed' of enjoying something now? Man, it's like being 13 all over again. 0_o

A commenter would like to note that certain commenter's posts about commenters requiring calendares indicates that cetain commenters have not fully read certain posts and noted that, insofar as they can be decrypted, they sppear to represent and be consistent with certain opinions previously expressed by certain individuals and therefore be worthy of reply, and that even certain posters no longer have any idea where this sentace is going anymore.

Comment from: Robert Hutchinson posted at April 2, 2006 12:02 PM

So; what you're saying is that you'd rather use an unintelligible puppet sock to comment, rather than publicly admit you've been reading MegaTokyo?

I . . . never mind.

Comment from: Wednesday White posted at April 2, 2006 12:09 PM

Wait. Was Wednesday really chased by a knife-wielding admirer at one point?

Henrietta Pussycat is a fictional character and should be read as such.

To paraphrase Chris Rock, thousands of hits a day, and we can't get a single person to admit to reading it. It's like heroin - SOMEBODY'S got to be doing it.

Well, you'll kindly note I didn't say why. ;)

Comment from: kellandros posted at April 2, 2006 2:23 PM

I think I'm also very glad I never saw these fabled 'meow' Usenet wars.

I don't try to keep up with Megatokyo regularly anymore. Its much less frustrating to go through about 10-20 pages at once. Every so often when I see a reference to it I'll go and backtrack to where I last left off(reminds me of some of the Oceans Unmoving advice).

And judging by MegaTokyo even if I was into that, it'd be way too emo for me.

I mostly read it because I tend to read or at least occasionally glance at all the popular comics. I like to try to figure out what others are doing right, and learn from other people's experiences rather than learning the hard way myself. =P

What's so "ew" about a yaoi sex scene? Unless you'd "ew" at any love scene, or any love scene involving either Dom or Largo. Though admittedly, the idea of even the humorously suggested sex between Largo and Erika at one point had me going, "What the... aw, man, image I did not need!"

I personally read Megatokyo regularly. I understand the issues people have with it, but I think the reward is worth it. That, and I've found that some of the issues have been resolved. I think there is more of a conscious effort to make characters look different, the update schedule isn't nearly as sporadic as it once was, and in his biggest improvement, it's much easier to tell what, precisely, is actually going on these days.

I'll grant you, it's not at the point where I would tell apostates to give it a try again, but I hold out hope that it will get there one day.

While I think I prefer the more anarchic early days of Megatokyo, I find the idea of Largo as someone who sees the world entirely in terms of gaming -- and yet manages to be one of the more insightful characters for pretty much that same reason -- mostly hilarious and occasionally brilliant.

The other aspects of the story don't really appeal to me, but I've never really been into all the multisyllabic variants of manga, so that's already working against me. I suppose it's sort of like watching Romeo and Juliet because you really like Mercutio. On the other hand, Mercutio *is* one of the best roles in a Shakespearean play, so...

Comment from: Alexis Christoforides posted at April 3, 2006 3:11 AM

While I think I prefer the more anarchic early days of Megatokyo, I find the idea of Largo as someone who sees the world entirely in terms of gaming -- and yet manages to be one of the more insightful characters for pretty much that same reason -- mostly hilarious and occasionally brilliant.

I agree completely. Largo is the most interesting of the stars of Megatokyo and the only one I can (kind of) relate to. He's the main reason I read MT, but most fans seem to dislike him from what I can tell. Personally, I couldn't care less about Piro and Kimiko; shy-guy-gets-the-girl is a story I've read far too many times.

I'm loving the Largo+Erika story. I usually swing by the site every couple of weeks to catch up, but since this started I've been clicking over every day. Even on non-update days, even when p-man took two weeks off. Just. In. Case.

Actually, I've been enjoying Megatokyo more and more even before that. But, damn. Largo and Erika. Meow to the meow. Oh, wait. Wrong webcomic.

Comment from: gwalla posted at April 3, 2006 4:06 PM

I've considered writing an essay on how Megatokyo is really about the hyperreal Japan built up in the heads of American otaku from the snippets glimpsed in anime. In this view, the scene where (IIRC) Piro gives a girl chocolates for Valentine's Day, which many people familiar with Japan criticized (in Japan, girls give chocolates to guys on V-Day), might not be a cultural flub: details about the real Japan are actually irrelevant if it's meant to be set in a japanophilic neverland.

However, my understanding of semiotics is rudimentary at best, I've never read Baudrillard, and could never get all the way through Megatokyo. So I'd just be talking out of my ass.

Comment from: ebullientsoul posted at April 4, 2006 2:35 PM

That was cute, but for those of us who don't have the inclination to go into Word and delete every single one of the "meow"s can you let me know what was said?

Comment from: gwalla posted at April 10, 2006 12:27 AM

The guys give stuff back on White Day (March 14). Originally this was supposed to be white chocolate and marshmallows (hence, "White Day"), but more often it is white lingerie.

Also, giving chocolate on Valentine's Day is mandatory for many women working in offices: they are required to buy chocolate for all of their male coworkers. White Day, on the other hand, is completely optional.